“I know what you mean. It’s never easy.”
She shrugs. “The weird thing is, I’m not jealous of you. If it was another woman from the office, I probably would be.” She kicks a small rock lying on the bricks. “Who am I kidding? I know I would be. I’d be comparing myself to her and asking why I fell short. But you’re different.”
Ahead on our right, there’s a guitarist playing blues on a bench. A woman stands behind him, holding an umbrella over his head to protect the instrument from the rain. A knot of people listens with appreciation.
“Probably not as different as you think,” I tell her. “I’m just a woman.”
“No, you are. So many women I know – professional women – they’re struggling for respect all the time. They’re so conscious of how they’re being treated, constantly looking for respect, that they’re only using seventy percent of their brains for their job. Sometimes I feel like that. But you just go about your business like you never even think about it. You just expect respect, and you get it.”
“I’m older than you are. Got a lot more miles on me.”
“That’s it,” she says. “Not the age, but the miles. The fact that you’ve been all over the world, covered wars and stuff. Seen combat. I’ve never seen John or the SAC act the way they act around you – with another woman, I mean. Not even with female ASACs.”
“You’ll get there. It’s not any great watershed moment, though. One day you just realize you’re part of the game instead of a spectator. You’re on the inside, and there’s no getting back out again, even if you want to.”
“I’ll be glad when that day comes.”
“Don’t be in too much of a hurry.”
“I think about Robin Ahrens sometimes. She was the first female FBI agent to be killed in the line of duty. It happened in eighty-five. They were trying to arrest an armored car thief, and things got confused. She was shot by a male agent who mistook her for a bad guy.”
“You’re curious about what action is like, aren’t you?”
“I guess so. I mean, being on the SWAT team and all. You wonder about the real thing.”
“Robin’s story is a textbook lesson. Combat is total confusion from the first shot. Combat vets all say the same thing. Remember your training, and don’t try to be a hero. That’s pretty much the bible, right there.”
“I just want to do my job,” Wendy says. “Not mess up some stupid way and get someone hurt or killed.”
“You won’t. Your love life is more complicated than your job ever will be.”
She laughs ruefully. “You’re probably right about that. Well, anyway, I know why John is attracted to you, and it’s okay. You guys don’t have to hide from me or anything.”
I wonder if I could ever summon the selfless goodness that seems to flow from this girl. Probably not. I touch her forearm. “Thanks, Wendy. And I haven’t slept with him yet, if you’re wondering.”
“I wasn’t asking that,” she says quickly. Then she bites her lip. “Though maybe I was wondering. A little.”
We both laugh, and suddenly the day does not seem quite so gray, or the rain so cold. I wave to the guitarist as we pass him, and then we’re at the artillery park and Jackson Square. Just across Decatur wait the tourist carriages, their horses standing wearily in the rain, with a Lucky Dog man lifting wieners from his steaming cart nearby. On St. Ann, the card tables of tarot readers line the cement, and sidewalk artists advertise their services with portraits of Barbra, the Duke, the Beatles, and Jerry Garcia.
“The rain’s not stopping,” Wendy says. “Maybe we should call for a car.”
“In a minute.” I look to our left, where wide wooden steps march right down into the swollen river. “Let’s go down to the old Jax Brewery. Get some coffee.”
Wendy nods, but I can see it goes against her instincts. I pick up the pace, fighting my anger at John for holding back on me. The rain has thinned out the walkway traffic, but two men are approaching, a young one with greasy jeans and an unkempt beard, and a few yards behind him a man wearing khakis and a teal Ralph Lauren button-down. Wendy tenses, watching the bearded man, then glances over her shoulder as he passes. While she watches him, the man in the Polo shirt brings up his right arm, and polished nickel gleams in the rain.
I shout a warning to Wendy, and before the sound fades she’s in front of me, her hand flying under her jacket to the pistol holstered there.
A gunshot explodes over the levee, and something hot and wet stings my face. Wendy seems to stutter in place, then falls backward onto the bricks with a flat thump like a sack of sand. My white blouse is spattered with a fine red mist. Wendy’s blood. Screams erupt from the parking lot, and I sense more than see people diving to the ground.
The man in the Polo charges me, his gun pointed at my chest, and grabs my arm with his free hand.
My eyes are locked on Wendy, who lies on her back, eyes open and fixed on the sky, a large bubble of blood on her lips. As I stare, my captor pulls up his gun and shoots her again, this time in the side. She doesn’t make a sound.
I try to yank my arm free, but he swings the gun in a quick savage arc against my forehead, and the world blanks out for a moment.
A jumble of thoughts: his tremendous strength; his lack of hesitation in shooting Wendy, as John predicted; the realization that this is no random attack, that he shot Wendy to get to me, that he wants me alive; that this is
As he drags me toward the streetcar tracks, I notice one man in the parking lot who’s not lying prone on the gravel. Both his arms are leveled in our direction, and I’m starting to duck when I recognize John Kaiser.
“Jordan!” he cries. “Drop!”
As I start to fall, my captor jerks me in front of him like a shield. John moves left, angling for a shot, but I’m in his way. The man holding me throws up his free arm and fires three times quickly in John’s direction. John spins, trying to avoid the shots, but his spin continues to the ground and he does not get up.
He wants me in the parking lot. I can’t let him get me into a car. My mind flashes onto the gun John gave me, but it’s lying useless in its holster in my rented Mustang, parked at the FBI office. The only weapon I have is the knowledge that the man holding me doesn’t want to kill me here. He has a much more exotic fate in mind.
I fire my elbow into his rib cage, earning a crack and a howl of agony. His arm goes limp for an instant, and in that instant I wrench myself loose and run back toward Wendy, an image of her gun in my head. But as I near her I realize she’s lying on top of the still-holstered weapon. If I stop to turn her over, he’ll catch me. There’s no cover here but the river, so I lunge left, toward the wooden steps that lead down to the water. As I reach the top step, a shot rings out behind me.
“Don’t make me kill you!”
I’m silhouetted on the edge of the steps like a duck in an arcade, and I can’t possibly reach the water in one leap. I’m going to have to wait for a better chance.
As I turn back, he marches up with the gun, his dark eyes blazing. He looks a little older than I am, with a shock of salt-and-pepper hair and a deeply lined face. I’ve never seen his face, but I recognize the dark light in his eyes, from places I prefer not to remember.
“We’re going to my car,” he says. “If you fight, I’ll shoot you in the spine. You’ll go limp as a rag doll, and I’ll have to carry you, but you’ll still be nice and warm between the legs and you’ll still make a pretty picture for the man.”
The icy conviction in his voice paralyzes me, wiping out every emotion but terror. Seizing my arm, he pulls me back across the walkway, his eyes full of purpose.
Thirty yards away, John lies on his stomach, struggling in vain to reach his knees. When we pass him, my attacker will fire a bullet into him, just as he did with Wendy. My limbs are heavy with the inevitability of nightmares -
The scream stops me cold, and in some sliver of a second I know it came from Wendy Travis’s throat. Twisting my neck, I see her lying on her stomach, propped on her elbows, her pistol clenched in both hands, her eyes shining brightly through the blood and rain. An arm whips around me to aim at her, but I bat it aside and
